Red State (2011)
Red State is a 2011 American independent action-horror film, written and directed by Kevin Smith, starring John Goodman, Melissa Leo and Michael Parks. Being driven to school by his mother, Travis (Michael Angarano) notices first a fire station siren being removed from its pole and then members of the Five Points Trinity Church, led by Abin Cooper (Michael Parks), protesting the funeral of a local gay teenager who was found murdered. Jared (Kyle Gallner), a friend of Travis, reveals he received an invitation from a woman he met on a sex site for group sex with himself, Travis and Billy Ray (Nicholas Braun). They borrow Travis' parents' car and travel to meet the woman. Along the way, they accidentally sideswipe the vehicle of Sheriff Wynan (Stephen Root), while he was having sex with a man in his car. Afraid, the boys drive off. Sheriff Wynan returns to the station and tells his deputy Pete (Matt L. Jones) to go and look for the vehicle. Meanwhile, the boys arrive at the trailer of the woman who sent out the invitation, Sarah Cooper (Melissa Leo). She encourages them to drink, and after being drugged by the beer, they pass out while undressing. Jared wakes up while being moved in a covered cage. He realizes he is in the sanctuary at Five Points after he identifies Cooper. Cooper begins a long, hate-filled sermon before identifying another captive, a homosexual they lured in through an internet chat room. They bind him to a cross using plastic cling wrap, execute him with a revolver and drop him into a small crawl space where Travis and Billy Ray are bound together. Cooper then begins binding Jared to the cross, but stops when he notices Pete driving up to the church. Travis and Billy Ray use a protruding bone from the corpse to cut themselves free, which is heard by Caleb (Ralph Garman). He lifts up the trap door just in time to see Billy Ray escape and runs after him. Billy Ray is not able to help Travis out of his tight cling wrap cuffs and leaves him for dead. Caleb chases Billy Ray into a room stocked with weapons, where the two end up shooting each other. Pete hears the gunshots and calls Wynan for back-up, but is shot and killed by Mordechai (James Parks). Cooper then blackmails Wynan, telling him to stay away or he will reveal Wynan's homosexuality to his wife using explicit photos the church has taken of him. In desperation, Wynan calls ATF Agent Joseph Keenan (John Goodman), who begins setting up outside of the church. While the family mourns Caleb, Travis (who had broken free and feigned death alongside Billy Ray's corpse) arms himself and plans to shoot the congregation, but witnesses Jared still being held captive on the cross. Instead, Travis makes a run for it, eventually making it outside where he is shot and killed by Wynan, who mistook him for a member of the congregation. Keenan tries to reason with the family but a shoot-out erupts instead after ATF Special Agent Brooks (Kevin Pollak) is shot in the head by Cooper. In the midst of the shooting, Wynan is killed, and Agent Keenan receives a call from ATF higher-ups ordering him to start a full raid of the complex to ensure that no witnesses remain of the operation to give details of the events. Keenan is clearly disturbed by this, but passes on the order to another tactical agent named Harry (Kevin Alejandro) who also struggles with this decision and argues with Keenan in private against doing this. Keenan dismisses Harry's protests for personal reasons, rationalizing his decision based on personal gain and the reputation of the ATF, and Harry storms off in disgust. During the shoot-out, Cheyenne (Kerry Bishé) escapes and is captured by an ATF agent (Marc Blucas) who is about to shoot her (per orders), but he is instead killed by Cheyenne's mother, Sarah. Cheyenne returns to the house and unbinds Jared, begging him to help her hide the congregation's children. Jared refuses due to the fact that the church had killed both his best friends, and her pleas turn into a fight. Sarah notices them and attacks Jared. Cheyenne tries to break up the fight and accidentally shoots Sarah in the process, killing her. Cheyenne sends the children up into the attic, and Jared changes his mind and decides to help Cheyenne hide the children. They run outside to plead with Keenan to spare the children but are killed by Harry, who has come around to accepting Keenan's rationales, though Keenan is now visibly disturbed by Harry's actions. The shoot-out is then suddenly interrupted when a mysterious loud trumpet blast echos across the sky. The remaining Coopers lower their weapons and run outside rejoicing, claiming that "the Rapture" has come upon them as the trumpet continues to play. Abin calmly approaches a stunned ATF team and confidently taunts them that God's wrath is upon the Earth. He raises his arms and stands in the face of a confused and worried Keenan in a moment of triumph, daring him to defy God as the trumpet blares. Several days later, during a briefing before high-ranking government officials, Keenan reports that he then head-butted Cooper and took the rest of the congregation into custody. He explains that the trumpet noises were not the Rapture but came from a group of college students who lived down the road and were irritated with Cooper. As a prank they rigged up an old fire house siren to an iPod with loud trumpet noises, unaware of the shootout taking place over the hill. Keenan is promoted despite disobeying a direct order from his superiors at the time to kill everyone at the compound. Keenan is surprised that he is not punished for his insubordinate actions but his superiors explain that their initial decision to kill the members of the congregation was mostly personal and that they are satisfied with the alternative punishment of taking away the prisoners' constitutional rights to due process by classifying their crimes as terrorism, locking them up without ever letting them go to trial. Keenan laments this outcome in a story he shares about a couple of hungry brawling dogs he once knew that taught him about the darker side of human nature and the way simple beliefs can turn humans into bloodthirsty animals. Cooper is finally seen pacing around his cell singing and sermonizing to himself until another prisoner (Kevin Smith) tells him to "shut the fuck up".